Astronaut's family in tears amid 'terrible threat' of son being stranded in space

An American astronaut’s family say they have been reduced to tears amid fears that Russia would leave him stranded in space.

Mark Vande Hei, who works for NASA, is working on the International Space Station (ISS) and is due to return to Earth aboard a Russian spacecraft at the end of this month.

US President Joe Biden announced sanctions on Russia that would "degrade" the country's aerospace industry and space programme.

However, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin cast doubt over the US astronaut's safety and warned on Telegram that western sanctions against the Kremlin could cause the ISS to crash.

The Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft carrying the crew formed of Mark Vande Hei of NASA and cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov of Roscosmos pictured last year (REUTERS)

Mr Vande Hei’s mother Mary told the Mail on Sunday that she was reduced to tears worrying about her son’s fate.

“It’s a terrible threat,” The 77-year-old said.

“When I first heard it I did a lot of crying. It’s very troubling.

“We are just doing a lot of praying.”

Mrs Vande Hei, from Minneapolis, Minnesota, said it was a “shame” the ISS had been politicised.

Her son’s wife, Julie, who lives in Texas, was “very worried” for her husband, Mrs Vande Hei said.

Rogozin has hit out at sanctions put in place by President Joe Biden, warning that Mr Vande Hei could be stuck in space as a result.

“Do you want to destroy our co-operation on the ISS?” he asked.

Cosmonauts of the Russian space agency Roscosmos Pyotr Dubrov, Oleg Novitskiy and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei (REUTERS)

“If you block co-operation with us, who will save the ISS from an uncontrolled de-orbit and fall into the United States or Europe?”

However, Mr Vande Hei’s 80-year-old father, a retired information systems executive, said his son does “not scare easily”.

The threats were just one person speaking, he said, and while it was a figure of importance, he said the other people within the space agency seemed “very cooperative”.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has offered to step in and send a rocket to rescue the US astronaut should the Russians leave him stranded.

But Nasa said it was confident Mr Vande Hei will return safely.

The International Space Station team was continuing to safely conduct research operations in low-Earth orbit, a spokesperson said.

Ongoing station operations continued, including work to fly crew to the orbital outpost.

It was expected that astronauts in situ would be returned safely to Earth.